Stanford Business magazine

Spreadsheet

For the Record

MBA Class of 2010 Profile

General
Total Applications	6,575
New Students	370
Women	36%
International (includes Permanent Residents)	34%
US Minority	24%
Advanced Degree Holders	15%
Years of Work Experience
Range	0-11
Median	3.9
School/Geographic Representation
US Institutions	77
Non-US Institutions	71
Countries (including the US)	53
Undergraduate Majors
Humanities/Social Sciences	46%
Engineering/Math/Natural Sciences	35%
Business	19%
Top 5 Previous Industry Experience
Investment Management 1	30%
Consumer Products (manufacturing & services)	24%
Consulting	17%
Nonprofit/Government	11%
High tech (manufacturing & services)	9%
1Investment Banking, Hedge Funds, Private Equity, Venture Capital. Source: MBA Admissions Office as of Sept. 2008

She Spreads Seedlings by the Seashore

"I was completely in the dark about this kind of lifestyle," says Deborah Guillory Emery, MBA '90.

She is talking about life in Alert Bay on tiny Cormorant Island off the coast of Western Canada. There she and her husband, Roland Emery, run Bivouac West, which contracts with lumber companies to reforest and repair recently logged areas. The two live in a onetime houseboat, retrofitted for land, and share the neighborhood with another 1,200 to 1,500 people, "depending which census you believe," she says.

Deborah was working in Los Angeles and Roland was living in Canada when they met at a wellness spa in San Diego in 2001. Three years later she moved to British Columbia and became the chief administrative officer of his company.

At Bivouac, planting season begins in January. The crews start at sea level, then work inland and upward as the snow melts. After a six-week summer break they return to check the seedlings, remove brush, and, when the weather turns cool, burn undergrowth.

"Work areas are mostly remote and involve the use of boats, water taxis, barges, float and amphibian planes, helicopters, and airplanes to transport crews, cooks, mariners, and captains, as well as trees, trucks, fertilizers, and other equipment," says Guillory Emery, who handles the logistics.

But if her job requires a mountain of planning, the perks are incomparable. "Often, a helicopter picks us up at home and takes us to the work area, where we have the company of black bears and cougars, or wildlife like eagles, herons, and otters, with orca and other marine life nearby."

Guillory Emery always wanted to work in a socially responsible, environmentally supportive company, she says, but she never counted on the changes it would bring to her life, and adds, "If I'd known about it sooner I'd have signed up!"

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Credit Crisis Lessons

As Congress and the public were reacting to the unraveling of securities and credit markets in late September, Stanford faculty in economics and finance gathered at the Business School to share their perspectives with students.

The origins of the current crisis read like the syllabus of Professor Jim Van Horne's corporate finance course, said finance Professor Peter DeMarzo. "It begins with agency problems—incentive misalignment on the part of mortgage issuers who, as we know, didn't have incentive to worry about the quality of loans they were issuing. And then leverage on Wall Street amplifying that shock."

Credit default swaps and layers of complex derivative products written against mortgage loans exacerbated the problem, said finance Professor Darrell Duffie. "If you want to take a lot of risk it's really easy with derivatives, which is what a lot of financial institutions did.''

"Where the daisy chain ends, nobody knows,'' added Van Horne, who counted 16 credit crises in U.S. history, all marked by speculative excesses followed by a peak in bankruptcy filings and sometimes a collapse in commodity prices. Macroeconomists debate whether the financial sector should be permitted to suffer through a cyclical business decline without government intervention, said economics Professor Monika Piazzesi. Most "work with models where the financial sector is just like any other sector,'' she said, but a "small group" that includes Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke thinks "the financial sector is special."

They believe "the financial sector is the valve through which liquidity to producers and consumers flows,'' Duffie said. "If you want to improve the life of Americans, according to this hypothesis, then we have to start by making this valve unclogged."

For the future, law Professor Joseph Grundfest said he is working on a new form of credit rating agency not funded by the institutions whose products are being rated. He likened the existing rating system to "people who own the restaurants paying the restaurant reviewers to issue reviews. It's only a question of time before you get a bad meal."

Alumni can view an online video of the Sept. 25 panel discussion at www.gsb.stanford. edu/news/headlines/teach-in Sept.html.

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Yesterday

In 1965, students line up for registration in front of the then unfinished GSB campus and a centennial oak, which dates back to the signing of the U.S. Constitution. In June, a number of limbs fell from the tree, necessitating its removal.

Several sections of the oak were saved to make benches for the new Knight Management Center, which broke ground in September. This was the last of Stanford University's centennial oaks.

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Business Skill Boosts Three Kiwi Scientists

In an attempt to expand New Zealand's pool of science entrepreneurs, a foundation financed by that country's government sent a recent PhD graduate and two doctoral students to the Business School's Summer Institute for Entrepreneurship.

Benjamin Matthewson, Daniel Crabtree, and Tony Cardno, (pictured, L to R), were among 72 non-business graduate students who took part in the four-week program, focused on business fundamentals.

The three-year-old program draws mostly Stanford graduate students in engineering, medicine, or science, but students from other universities can also apply.

Cardno, who patented a low-cost assay test for HIV research , is exploring whether to license the product or bring it to the marketplace himself. The Stanford program "helps me talk with these commercial people about business plans and venture capital," he said.

Crabtree and Matthewson are PhD students at Victoria University in Wellington. Matthewson, a chemistry student, is researching proteins that serve as "building machines" inside seashells. Crabtree, a computer science student, has created several small web-related companies. "Since I never had any formal background in business," Crabtree said, "this seemed like a perfect opportunity to cover all of the bases in quite a short period of time."

Goods Made in China, Why Not in India?

India's phenomenal economic growth is missing the poor, says Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen (at right). "When I look at my desk, I have a little handheld calculator made in China, I have paper clips made in China, I've got a stapler made in China, I've got a little clock on one side made in China—and these generate a lot of employment and income."

Instead of having entrepreneurs in fields that create jobs, India has too many of its brightest in a few areas, such as technology. "One of the reasons why they're concentrated is because our schooling is so bad compared to China's," Sen explained at an informal lunch sponsored by the Global Management Program and SAIL, the School's student exchange program with the Indian Institute of Management.

Increasing literacy, improving child mortality rates, and providing basic health care are among the major concerns of the 73-year-old economics and philosophy professor.

Despite his concerns about the overall economic system, Sen said it is important for government and citizens not to be so frustrated by problems that they stop trying to make India better.

"The easiest rhetoric in politics," he said, "is to say the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, we're pouring money in, nothing much is happening—it's all a waste. But none of this is true. What is true is we can pour more money in, and none of it will be wasted."

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Waiter, May We Have 12 Separate Checks?

As the holiday season approaches so, too, do the relatives: the uncle who claims your deceased Dad owed him money, the brother-in-law who gave you a stock tip and now wants a piece of the profit, the sister who sold Mom's engagement ring on eBay. How does a reasonable person sit down at the Thanksgiving table with people like these?

In their 2008 book, Isn't It Their Turn to Pick Up the Check?, Money magazine columnists Leonard Schwarz, MBA '78, and his wife, Jeanne Fleming, who earned a Stanford PhD in sociology, examine the uncomfortable financial issues that arise among family and friends.

As far as holiday giving goes, Schwarz and Fleming suggest answers for two opposing situations: when your brother gives your child a comic book even though you always give his kids nice stuff, and when your father-in-law, who lives on a far smaller income than yours, insists on presenting you with an outsized check.

Schwarz and Fleming say you should feel no qualms about toning down your gift giving to approximate your brother's. "Unless he's told you he doesn't want to exchange expensive gifts, your brother has no business reaping the benefits of your willingness to do what he won't—spend money on other people."

But in the opposite situation, with you as the beneficiary of your overly generous father-in-law, consider what a gift means. "Gift giving is an expression of one's role in the family—in your father-in-law's case, as paterfamilias," Schwarz and Fleming write. "So relax. Accept your father-in-law's checks with the gratitude and warmth they deserve. Then treat yourself to something nice, and tell him how much you enjoyed it."

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Graduation Pomp Heard 'Round the World

Of all the Hallmark moments you don't want to miss, the graduation of a loved one is near the top of the list. Last June, nearly 1,000 relatives and friends, located in more than 200 places far from campus, witnessed the commencement of Stanford Business School's Class of 2008.

The entire ceremony, from "Pomp and Circumstance" through the granting of honors and degrees, was presented simultaneously on the web, and people who couldn't make the trip because of health, age, money, or national security were able to cheer their favorites in real time.

"My family watched from Brazil as if they were at Frost Amphitheater. They even screamed my name when I walked on stage!" Thiago Borges, MBA '08, wrote in a thank-you note to the School.

"In Jacksonville, Fla., my mom donned her Stanford T-shirt, and my granddad stayed up the latest he had in years," wrote Leah Hodge, MBA '08. "There were at least six other close family friends watching in other locations, and they all called home when they saw me cross the stage."

Classmate Rong Zhang's family watched from Beijing. "They were very excited to see me, my wife, and our two boys from 6,000 miles away," he wrote. Puru Vashishtha, MBA '08, called the webcast no less than "a lifesaver." His family could not make it to the United States from India because of passport problems, but they still felt a part of this special event. And MBA classmate Steffen Gnegel came home graduation night to an email from Germany that exclaimed, simply, "We were there, live!"

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He Brings School to Rural Vietnam

Philanthropy in developing countries can mean more than just writing a check, says Eric Hemel, MBA '77, PhD '80.

In 2003 the financial analyst and his wife, Barbara Morgen, a corporate lawyer, took a walking trip that opened their eyes to the extreme poverty of rural Vietnam. Since then, the program they founded has helped almost 5,000 poor Vietnamese youngsters continue school beyond the second grade.

Following a year of due diligence, in which the couple returned to Vietnam to meet with representatives of five charitable groups, they settled on the East Meets West Foundation of Oakland, Calif., as the umbrella organization for their program. Hemel joined the foundation's board, and in 2004 the couple launched EMW's Scholarship Program to Enhance Literacy and Learning, or SPELL, with 1,500 students. Each child receives tuition, fees, books, uniforms, stationery, and even a bicycle if he or she lives more than a mile and a half from school. Students also get tutoring and a promise of funding through the 12th grade.

The current cost of the program is about $50 per child per year, and almost all of the funding comes from Hemel and Morgen plus four other families.

Alumni Snippets

Illustration by Peter Hoey.

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Vermonty Comedian with Side of Egg Rolls

Vermont state legislator Jason Lorber is a stand-up comic in his spare time.

Vermont. Fresh air, fabulous foliage, awesome ice cream. What more do you need? Well, comedy clubs, for one."Vermont has literally no clubs that produce comedy," says stand-up comedian and Vermont legislator Jason Lorber, MBA '95, who moved to the Green Mountain State in 2002 and started producing his own shows wherever he could find an audience.

Lorber's most unlikely venue so far is the Chinese restaurant where he has produced an annual Christmas dinner show called Moo-Jew Comedy. His shtick? Since Jews don't celebrate Christmas, on Christmas Eve they go out for Chinese food. "Moo-Jew Comedy thus presents comedy in Jews' natural habitat," he says. Lorber also has performed on stage, film, television, and radio, where he hosted the 90-minute show So … Jew Live in Vermont?, which he describes as "just like the Tonight Show. Only Jewish. And Vermonty."

Lorber was running his own consulting firm in San Francisco and doing occasional stand-up when his partner was offered a college faculty position in Vermont. "Who knew?" he says. "I moved to Vermont and my life changed. I became this entertainer-politician. I'll be totally honest—when we first moved it was a little bit scary. I spent most of my life in California, having not even lived in weather before."

Lorber may never get used to weather, but he's definitely becoming Vermonty. In 2004 he ran for a seat in the state legislature and he is running for a third two-year term. As a representative, he has concerned himself with prison reform, the minimum wage, election reform, and health care. Perhaps his biggest accomplishment is the passage this year of a bill he coauthored that provides alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent offenders by investing in drug and alcohol treatment programs, transitional housing, and community-based solutions.

"It's just awesome to be able to pass meaningful legislation that changes people's lives," Lorber says. "Vermont is such a small state. If we can make significant change here, it can have a ripple effect across the country."

And he's not kidding.

Meet Jason the entertainer at jasonlorber.com. Vermont Representative Lorber is at friendsofjason.blogspot.com.

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